Qū yí shuō 袪疑說
Discussion to Dispel Doubts
by 儲泳 (Chǔ Yǒng, zì Wénqīng 文卿, hào Huágǔ 華谷); also rendered Qū yí shuō zuǎn in the Míng Bài hǎi edition.
About the work
A 1-juàn Southern-Sòng bǐjì by 儲泳 (Chǔ Yǒng), settled at Huátíng (Sōngjiāng). The book is a critical-sceptical biàn — a debunking-disquisition — on Sòng fāngshì (magician) and yīnyáng practitioner techniques. Chǔ was a lifelong amateur of shù shù (numerological / divinatory arts) and the book grew out of his eventually penetrating the qíngwěi (genuine-and-fraudulent) of these techniques. The book ranges across: Yì zhàn (Yì divination); biàn mài (pulse-reading in medicine); biàn zhēn (the dispute over the BǐngWǔ zhōngzhēn vs. ZǐWǔ zhèngzhēn in feng-shui); mò shuō (ink-making); fú yìn zhòu jué (talismans, seals, spells); the huángbái shù (alchemical gold-and-silver fraud); cinnabar drugs; pseudo-marvels (call-magpie summons, mosquito-driving); historical and metaphysical readings of guǐ shén (ghosts and spirits) and yīnyáng; and a substantive Dà wǔxíng shuō on the geomantic five-phase system. The book is one of the most substantive Sòng rationalist critiques of popular occult practice.
Tiyao
We respectfully submit that Qū yí shuō in one juan was compiled by Chǔ Yǒng of the Sòng. Yǒng’s zì was Wénqīng, hào Huágǔ; settled-lived in Huátíng; skilled at yínyǒng (poetic singing) — his shī collection now lost; only the Shī jiā dǐng luán preserves a few in the Zhìyuán Jiāhé zhì.
This book — because of his lifelong devout fondness for shù shù, eventually thoroughly understanding their qíngwěi (genuine-or-fraudulent), and so composing this book to refute them. The Míng [edition by] Shāng Jùn once printed it into the Bài hǎi, with much excision — preserving only 5 or 6 of 10 entries — titled Qū yí shuō zuǎn — definitely not the Chǔ original. This is the Zuǒ Guī Bǎichuān xuéhǎi recension — apparently still the complete original of its day.
Among the entries: only the biàn mài (pulse-discussion) entry discusses medical principle; the mò shuō (ink-making) entry discusses miscellaneous craft; the rest are all kǎo of yīnyáng wǔxíng discourse and bì fāngshì huànwàng zhī shù (refutation of the fāngshì’s deceptive yáo arts) and the huángbái (gold-and-silver alchemical) discourse. His discussion of guǐ shén as the gathering-and-scattering of qì; chí liàn (the sustained-practice) as the sincere-rectifying of the heart; further, his theory of shénxiàng zhī líng (the magical-effect of divine-images) — “the magical effect lies in the human heart” (not in the image itself); further, the yīnyáng jū jì (avoidance-taboo) — “the great and pressing avoid; the small and slow ignore; what accords with principle, follow; what runs against principle, discard” — all is gentle-easy plain-practical, sufficient to alert and rouse the common world.
Yǒng also composed an Yì shuō, cited in Dīng Yìdōng’s [works]; and a Lǎo zǐ commentary. So, although wandering through the Dào arts, he yet compromises with the jīng yì (principles of the classics); accordingly his arguments are firmly on the orthodox path.
Respectfully revised and submitted, twelfth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng (1781).
Abstract
The Qū yí shuō is one of the most substantial late-Southern-Sòng critical works on popular occult practice. Chǔ Yǒng’s distinctive position is not a dismissal of shù shù from the outside but a biàn from the inside: having mastered the techniques, he is in a position to identify which are genuine and which are fraudulent. The book accordingly preserves a remarkable amount of technical fāngshì lore — pulse-reading, feng-shui needle-dispute, the eight methods of the Yì, the gōngzhī (palace-position) system, the liùrén (six-grand-Pacific) system, the geomantic five-phase system — even as it exposes the fāngshì tricks (the pig-sac concealed in the sleeve to make water boil; the mirror-reflection trick; the smoke-rising-from-jujubes trick; the coin-vanishing-into-water trick; the bird-summoning trick).
The book has three principal substantive contributions:
- Critique of huángbái shù: Chǔ exposes the gold-and-silver alchemical-fraud business as a regular scam, identifying specific techniques (mercury-coating, copper-tinting) and explaining their motivations and methods.
- Pulse-and-medicine on male/female differences: Chǔ vindicates the Cǔ Chéng zūnshēng jīng tradition’s position on the inversion of male and female pulse-positions, against the Wáng Shūhé mainstream tradition.
- Dà wǔxíng shuō: A substantial closing essay on the dà wǔxíng (geomantic five-phase) system, rejecting the popular Jiǎng Wénjǔ 蔣文舉 (Yáng Yúnsōng 楊筠松-school) and Shǔzhōng Chén Tuán-school recensions and proposing a derivation from the gōng zhī (palace-position) numerology — one of the more substantive critical engagements with the Yáng-school feng-shui tradition in Sòng bǐjì literature.
Chǔ’s broader theological position is significant. He locates guǐ shén in the jùsàn zhī qì (gathering-and-scattering of qì) tradition, rejecting both the simple-belief and simple-dismissal positions, and identifies the magical-efficacy of shénxiàng in the human heart rather than in the image — an early version of the moral-psychological reading of cult-practice.
Dating. No internal preface dating; the book belongs to Chǔ’s mature years. CBDB lifedates are unrecorded. Conservative bracket: NotBefore 1220 / notAfter 1260 — based on the general Southern-Sòng dating of the Bǎichuān xuéhǎi exemplar and Dīng Yìdōng (fl. 1280s) citing Chǔ’s Yì shuō.
The principal recension is the Bǎichuān xuéhǎi preserved-original, used by the Sìkù editors; the Míng Bài hǎi recension is a heavily truncated re-titled Qū yí shuō zuǎn.
Translations and research
No complete Western-language translation. The book is increasingly cited in modern scholarship on Sòng popular religion, occult-debunking, feng-shui critique, and fāng-shì technique. See Edward Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Sòng China (2001) for the broader context. The Dà wǔ-xíng shuō is a standard reference in studies of Sòng geomancy.
Other points of interest
The book is one of the earliest sustained internal-criticism rationalist exposes of fāngshì practice in Chinese intellectual history. Chǔ’s protocol — that one cannot debunk what one has not first mastered — anticipates later Qīng and modern critical-historical method.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Qū yí shuō entry.